Technology Pioneers

New technologies and innovations are constantly changing and improving the way we do things and approach problems. Processes, institutions and industries that have been around and unchanged for decades are now being rethought and redesigned with the aid of technology. Many of these adaptions and approaches are not being developed by large, established industry leaders, but rather by their smaller, early-stage counterparts.

This year, the World Economic Forum is pleased to present 24 leading start-ups selected as Technology Pioneers. Among the recipients are companies that are significantly improving diagnostics and health treatment; providing electricity to the off-grid underprivileged; pioneering low-cost computing; developing new visual, audio and sensor technologies; and embedding Internet of Things services.

Click here to explore the video interviews with our past Technology Pioneers going back to 2007.

The Forum's Technology Pioneers programme recognizes companies – normally in a start-up phase – from around the world that are involved in the design, development and deployment of new technologies, and are set to have a significant impact on business and society. Technology Pioneers must demonstrate visionary leadership and show signs of being long-standing market leaders – their technology must be proven.

Each year the World Economic Forum, after a rigorous process, selects about 30 companies from hundreds of applicants. A selection committee – comprised of top technology and innovation experts, academics, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, evaluates all candidates against the programme’s criteria before making its recommendation to the World Economic Forum.

Since 2000, around 600 innovative companies from five continents have been selected as Technology Pioneers. Among them, the majority are still thriving independently while others have been acquired by industry leaders. Here are the Technology Pioneers from | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 |

For the 2016 class of Technology Pioneers all applications submitted by 5 February 2016, 23.59 CET will be considered. All applicants will be notified latest by mid-July 2016.If you have any questions, please refer to Technology Pioneers Programme FAQ here.

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The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most exciting prospects for today’s enterprises, as it has the potential to revolutionise everything from the way they operate and drive revenue to the types of goods, services and experiences they deliver. It is forcing businesses to rethink how they interact with the world around them and how they can build deeper relationships with their customers.

And the possibilities of IoT are leading businesses to embrace connected devices at a record pace. Surveys from Forrester shows that over 50% of enterprises plan to adopt IoT within the ...

Digital genome is one of 10 emerging technologies for 2015 highlighted by the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies.

Advances in technology have made sequencing an individual’s genome a reality – a development that will likely lead to more accurate medical diagnoses and more effective, individualized treatments.

To understand how the digital genome will change the future of healthcare, we spoke to Michael Pellini, who is the CEO of Foundation Medicine, a molecular information company dedicated to a transformation in cancer care in which ...

Imagine that the year is now 2020. Life has never been more exciting. Such a vast array of information is now accessible, and, more importantly, useful, to the citizens of the world. Advancements in massive-scale, deep learning, and predictive analytics technologies make this all possible.

Ray Kurzweil, a noted futurist, was right when he said that healthcare and medicine will become subject to the “law of accelerating returns.” Succumbing to sickness is becoming a concept of the past as we now have the technology to reprogram our biology.

According to a U.S. Department of Energy report, 20 to 50 percent of industrial energy input is wasted as heat that could be converted into electricity. Is this a massive resource that both countries and industries can tap into to provide an additional pillar of renewable energy innovation? Or is that still a pipe dream?

Having focused on waste-heat recovery innovations for over ten years, on the sides of both industry and academia, I see 2014 as a watershed year for this important and still nascent field.

In the early 1990s, the first Crypto War began. With the release of Phil Zimmerman’s PGP in 1991, for the first time in history, anyone could encode and exchange a message that no law enforcement agency had the technical ability to intercept and decode.

Fearing that criminals would be able to hide their communications, the reaction of governments worldwide was swift. The United States, for instance, banned the export of what it deemed “strong crypto.” Early versions of Internet software such as Netscape’s Communicator browser and Lotus Notes came in two flavors: a ...